No. 4.] THE COLORED RACE. 273 



of Georgia ; and if we could got at the actual fact, I believe 

 that they would teach us that the colored people in the 

 other southern States are making progress just as manfully 

 as that. These census figures show that the colored people 

 number more than four hundred thousand heads of negro 

 families in this country. Do you know that we have al- 

 ready paid for and are paying taxes in this country upon 

 two hundred and sixty-four thousand farms, — two hundred 

 and sixty-four thousand of us own farms and are paying 

 taxes upon those farms. That is pretty good, my friends, 

 for a race that started in absolute poverty a few years ago. 



The problem that confronts us with the negro is not only 

 to get him to the point where he can make his own living, 

 where he is sure of three good meals a day, but we have 

 the added problem confronting the white man in the south 

 to-day in the education of the race. I speak of getting 

 the race to the point ; I lay a good deal of stress upon the 

 industrial side of our life, not because I believe that is the 

 end of life, not because I believe that is the highest thing, 

 the thing after which we should most strive, but because I 

 realize thoroughly that farming and plowing and industry 

 of every kind is not an end, but a means towards reaching 

 those high mental and spiritual things which we all consider 

 the real life. 



But in the south we find, much as I suppose you 

 find it here, it is a pretty hard thing down there to 

 make a good Christian of a hungry man. I find a hungry 

 farmer is a dangerous farmer in the south. I was talking 

 to an old colored man some time ago who lived in a com- 

 munity where ten years ago they used to have hogs stolen 

 every week ; somebod}^ was always in the courts of Ala- 

 bama for hog stealing ; and I met one of the men from this 

 township in the road some few weeks ago and I said : 

 "Uncle Sam, I haven't heard anything of hog stealing 

 from your township for several years. AVhat has taken 

 place?" He said, "Mr. Washington, we's all got hogs." 

 Nobody felt the advantage of hog stealing. It makes a 

 great difference whether we are out of hogs or not, whether 

 we favor hog stealing. You can't make a good Christian 



